> The problem here is that workers now want to be "paid properly" (what ever that means) and still get tips.
One sensible metric is that you should be able to support yourself while living in the area you work (or an area nearby such that it isn't a significant financial hardship or timesink to commute to work). Service jobs largely fail on that metric, effectively using government money and family support structures to cover the gap.
Support yourself living in a large house with a nice car and a family? Or support yourself as a single person living in a 2 bedroom apartment with 3 other roommates? Or support yourself with enough money to have some spending cash as you work your way through high-school and live with your parents?
The idea that a job shouldn't exist if it is only something that would interest a high-school student or uneducated young adult who is willing to live with lots of roommates creates fewer opportunities at the low end--not more.
I am not sure how that is a "sensible metric", how would you even begin to create a wage around that? What is "supporting yourself" even mean? Does a teenager need to make the same wage as a mother of 3? if there are 2 20yo waitstaff one is a single mother living alone, and the other is guy living in his parents basement should one be paid differently due to their life situation?
This is problem with basing wages on an individual needs, in reality the wage you are paid should have, and does have nothing to do with the amount of money you "need" to support yourself.
All of those examples should be able to afford the basics off their wage. An apartment that isn’t three hours from work or requiring hot beds, transportation, food, healthcare, etc.
Yes, it gets complicated, but “$7.25/hr isn’t enough” is not complicated.
Amazing the market already figured that out. I would love to know what jobs out there are paying $7.25
Not everything needs a government mandate. Every drive thru, and service job I see is has $13, $15, $16 per hour wages, and this is in the midwest where the median income is hovering around 50-55K
the problem here is none of that is actually connected to what a person needs. "Living Wage" Laws are just a different way to implement minimum wages, none of the laws shown on that page are connected to any kind of structure or process by which things needed to "live" like food, housing etc are tabulated where by a wage is set.
it is just a arbitrary wage picked by legislatures exactly like a "minimum wage" law only the "living wage" seems to apply to older people, where "minimum wage" laws apply to everyone. For example a 20yo in the UK can make "minimum wage" but a 24yo will need to make "living wage" both of which are just numbers pulled out of thin air, not connected to "the amount of money you need to support yourself. "
The numbers are in fact calculated, not pulled out of thin air. You seem to be cynically assuming they are not with no proof and no interest in proof one way or the other.
In many places low wage workers commute into HCOL areas. Being able to live in Manhattan on waiter's earnings is wishful thinking. Waiters are dime a dozen, and it's ridiculous to suggest they could possibly be making enough to live with mega high earners
Read the statement more closely: you can either tackle this problem by raising wages, or by reducing the financial and logistical burden of commuting (or both!). Manhattan isn't a good example for your case: millions of people (like myself) commute cheaply and easily into the borough each day to work.
A server can make $100-$500 per shift in tips, 4-5 shifts per week. On the low end, that's probably not enough even for a roommate situation. But in the medium-to-high end, that can easily cover a studio apartment.
So, nice areas shouldn't have restaurants? Paying waiters and busboys enough money to live in downtown SF while their counterparts in the suburbs are paid what they're getting now will distort the labor market in ways that break the whole thing.
That’s a distortion that is what the property owners in California want. Y’all get your million dollar studio apartments with $1000 property taxes and tent cities on the curb outside.
San Francisco can be a playground for the rich until they get sick of paying for $30 lattes or whatever and flee to low cost locales like Manhattan that have affordable housing and transit.
It won’t be “fixed” until we’re all backed into an economic corner where it becomes politically acceptable for the property owners to lose bazillions of dollars.
I don't know how you got to that, other than by assuming that nice areas have to be expensive. The fact that SF is unable to achieve both is an indicator of broken local markets and politics, not an ironclad rule for every other locality.
Edit: Another framing is that "nice" and "fancy" are different things, as much as extremely unequal markets like SF distort the distinction.
What's your qualification for "nice"? For me, it's decent public infrastructure, convenient access to both basic goods (groceries) and "light" luxuries (restaurants, bars), and a broad lack of concern that I'm going to be victimized by a crime.
Most of the US satisfies these constraints, especially if you own and don't mind driving a car.
One sensible metric is that you should be able to support yourself while living in the area you work (or an area nearby such that it isn't a significant financial hardship or timesink to commute to work). Service jobs largely fail on that metric, effectively using government money and family support structures to cover the gap.